About Heirlooms

What Are Heirloom Tomatoes?

Preserved by Families

Have a Story

Drippy Delicious

Sometimes Ugly

Mouth Watering

Collected by Seed Savers

Over 50 Years Old

Open Pollinated

AKA Heritage Tomatoes

Terminology

Hybrid tomatoes

Varieties produced by crossing two different varieties of tomatoes via hand-pollination. Hybrids don’t reproduce in kind, meaning plants grown from hybrid seeds don’t duplicate (in form or genetics) the parents from which the seeds were saved.

Varieties produced by purposely crossing two heirlooms or an heirloom and a hybrid, then de-hybridizing the new variety by breeding it for however many generation needed to stabilize its characteristics (up to 7-8 generations)

Mystery Heirlooms

New varieties created when two heirlooms cross-pollinate (most likely by bee cross-pollination with one (or both) parents unknown)